While many children, young and old, will be unwrapping various doodads and thingamajigs today, one thing a great number of gamers will be unwrapping is Microsoft’s Kinect. Microsoft’s answer to the motion control question has certainly been a popular commodity these past few months and will surely continue that trend through the holiday season.
With only a handful of interesting titles to boast at the moment, gamers might find themselves wondering what Kinect has in store for the future – and luckily Microsoft has provided a very exciting response.
Speaking with Xbox World 360, Microsoft’s UK Director of Xbox and Entertainment, Stephen McGill, said that beyond just delivering some exciting games, Microsoft has some big plans for Kinect owners.
McGill elaborates by saying:
“It’s also about great entertainment and that’s another key factor for us. We were the first company – and the best company, I think – to offer regular updates to our service so you don’t have to keep on buying new bits of hardware. Every few months we’ve been doing new services such as introducing movies and music so we continue to evolve.”
Xbox Live has always been known for its massive updates that sometimes completely overhaul the entire experience, the most recent one accommodating Kinect’s motion sensors, and therefore it stands to reason that the company would begin to expand upon that foundation in order to blow gamers’ minds.
What these updates could entail is anyone’s guess, as the early ones introduced voice control and controller-less navigation, but perhaps something a little more responsive is in the cards. Whatever Microsoft intends to do to keep Kinect a hot commodity well into next year’s Holiday season, don’t expect them to forget about the top tier titles of 2011 – but don’t expect them to place anything above Kinect either. McGill states:
“As for the future, we’ve got a brilliant line-up for 2011 but it’s ultimately all about Kinect. Kinect is going to blow people’s minds. They’re [already] buying it, but we’ve got a line-up of Kinect games that will blow people away.”
Ultimately, it’s within Microsoft’s best interest to keep Kinect going with both exciting games and regular updates, especially considering their blasé attitude towards a next gen console. If Kinect really is their version of a “next gen console,” then it wouldn’t be surprising to see the types of regular patches/updates/fixes that Xbox Live was receiving early in its infancy. It certainly could help to justify the price tags doesn’t it?
Would you be interested in picking up Kinect after hearing that Microsoft’s got some ideas in the oven that are going to blow your mind? Would you rather they keep their focus on games and put Kinect second?
Source: Xbox World 360 [via CVG]
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Well, it’d help to know their plans. I don’t have an XBOX 360, and the price tag for it and Kinnect are keeping me away. Being told I can do even better things is no better than any other standard snake oil salesman.
Microsoft seems poised to make XBOX a multipurpose system, using motion control and voice for access. Do people even want that? Or do they still see it as video games only? But I doubt after shelling out the bucks for games, they’d want games o be a second best.
Kinnect seems better for working with computers rather than an XBOX. But only time will tell. Once the novelty wears off, we’ll see how much people love Kinnect.
Not to be an ass but, it’s Kinect with single N.
I’ve been playing Kinect exclusively since launch, I know in my heart that I LOVE Kinect. I speak with no exaggeration when I say I’m actually finding it difficult to sit down to play my controller based game.
It’s true that it’s only been 2 months, but consider that the Move has been put away after 2 days while the Kinect still stands strong in my house, my guess is that MS has the upper hand on the motion gaming business.
Kinect seemed stupid and unnecessary to me at first, but I realized that it is a device that you could only truly appreciate once you were there to experience it. It also got my parents to approve of gaming, I mean, that’s huge.
Yes it will keep evolving and dont let the knews of a MS reps saying that the accuracy update not coming sway you, it is going to come, its gonna be a great year for 2011.
I freaking love kinect and I wish that meating Milo was going to be a game cuz I would pay $100 plus for it it looks amazing but no Microsoft desides oh we r just gonna scrap it even though it looks freaking awesome I wish that Microsoft would make meeting Milo a game please Microsoft I have an xbox and I got kinect for Christmas and I love it bit wat I’d really love is if it had meeting Milo
I totally agree with 1GamerRanter, i got kinect for christmas and i sbsolutely love it. I usually get something game related for christmas as it’s a lot of money for me to pay at my age anyway, i got my 360 in 2006, wii in 2007, psp in 2008, guitar hero world tour 2009 and this year kinect. For xbox and wii there was almost zero interest from my family, wii and guitar hero was played maybe an hour or two on christmas day and very occassionally after that, but kinect, me and my sisters have been playing ALL DAY. After we had christmas dinner i was boxing my sister, bowling with my dad, playing table tennis with my mum, etc. There is so much fun to be had with this thing, creates hysterical moments too
1GameRanter* sorry